EASTER’S SIGNIFICANCE

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIII, Issue 105, 15 April 1933, Page 5

EASTER’S SIGNIFICANCE

REAL PURPORT SUBMERGED YET WHAT MORE APPROPRIATE? Easter, with its traditional thought of sacrifice as a prelude to ultimate triumph, finds the world in a frame of mind where such a message should be peculiarly appropriate. Unfortunately, time tends to invest our special occasions with strange and temporary values and thus to deprive them of the basic significances which alone give them meaning. For that reason the message is too often lost in the observance—the sentiment in the sensual enjoyment. Thus to most, Easter is merely a long weekend at a particularly enchanting time of the year; an occasion when a delectable fish menu largely displaces the coarser meats of the ordinary bill-of-fare; when the young folks are regaled with intriguing multi-coloured eggs of doubtful ornitholoical origin; and when the facilities are ideal for sporting and ether holiday functions. With all of these things there is no quarrel; the only regret is that in the observance of the holiday the real purport of that which gave us the holiday is liable to be submerged. It is so with Christmas also, where the dominant thought in most minds is one of feasting—of family reunion around the festive board—of the giving of presents and, in the case of children, of the ever welcome visits of a benevolent but shockingly over-worked old gentleman, with a remarkable and ever-youthful faculty for scaling chimneys, and descending their sooty interiors without damage or 'discomfort. Again—with all these things there can be no quarrel; they are an integral and valuable part of our common life, but they do denote a lost significance. Good Friday stands for sacrifice, in the light of the greatest example of vicarious suffering in all human history. And the capacity for sacrifice is often the measure both of national and personal character. Sacrifice —the ability to do without, the willingness to undergo personal deprivation for the benefit of others—puts backbone into life in every capacity whether it be the life of the individual or of the people at large. And who will say that that is not, preeminently the gospel for the world at large in these troublous days? Easter Day stands for triumph; for victory against overwhelming odds; for reconciliation. It is the natural outcome of the sacrifice and its crowning sequel. Again—what more appropriate message for our day than the note of confidence and of a triumphant issue out of all our sorrows! The two cannot bo dissociated; like the seamless garment they are woven from the top throughout. First the sacrifice and then the victory: that is the Divine sequence. It is also the inner significance of Easter, which the world is in real dajiger of losing.—By E.C'.S. in the “Sydney Morning Herald.”